A Grown Man Cry
by KarmaLeafbarer
Summary: The ending of Fire And Rain told from Torg's POV with a bit of aftermath. The time has come for him to say goodbye to Zoe and start planning for a bleak future with Oasis. A Sluggy Freelance fanfic (www.sluggy.com)


DISCLAIMER AND NOTE -- All characters featured within this story do not belong to me and are the sole property of Pete Abrams. I do not own anyone, nor do I own the storyline "Fire And Rain". This is my first attempt at a Sluggy fanfic. This takes place shortly after Torg has dropped Zoe off at the end of the arc, "Fire and Rain". Dunno about the rest of you Sluggites, but I'm still tolling the bell for some romance between Torg and Zoe....Anyway, on with the story. You may flame when ready.  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
The phone rang hollowly in my ear as I sat on the edge of my motel bed. It was just shy of two in the morning...and having lived with Riff since we graduated high school, I've never known the man to go to bed at a decent hour.   
  
It rang twice....three times....and on the tail end of the fourth ring, it was picked up.   
  
"A CURSE ON YOU!!!" an eccentric voice declared with sleepy malice.  
  
"H'lo Bert." I sighed. "Let me talk to Riff."   
  
"Bah!! Tis time for sleep, knave! My crotch was tucked in nary two hours ago before you--"  
  
"Bert..." I interrupted. The last thing I needed right now was another tirade about his crotch.   
  
"Bah! Bah, I say!!" There was a clatter as the phone was laid down and the sound of retreating footsteps. A moment later, it was picked up again.  
  
"What?" Riff's voice filtered through the reciever.  
  
"Hey, man." I greeted.  
  
"Torg. How'd it go?"  
  
"Zoe's alright if that's what you mean." I replied.  
  
"And Oasis?"  
  
"Asylum."  
  
"Oh. Well, guess that's all taken care of then. Need me to pick ya up at the airport tomorrow?"  
  
"I'm engaged, Riff." I winced a bit. That had come out all wrong...but then, how was I supposed to put something like that lightly? There was a long silence on the other end of the line. "Riff? You there?"  
  
"Did the lines cross somewhere? I could have sworn you just said you were engaged to Zoe..."   
  
"No. I didn't say I was engaged to Zoe." I told him.  
  
"Oh thank god." he said, sounding utterly relieved.   
  
"I'm engaged to Oasis." Another long silence.   
  
".....Torg?"   
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"I'm gonna ask you something and I want you to try and give me a straight answer, okay?"   
  
"Alright." I sighed, rolling my eyes, and braced myself for nothing less than an explosion ala Riff. I was not disappointed.  
  
"ARE YOU NUCKING FUTS??? OASIS?? EARTH CALLING TORGVILLE, COULD YOU HAVE BEEN A BIGGER MORON???" Whether Riff wants to admit it or not, he got a lot of his temper from his mom...it just takes the right kind of circumstances to make it flare.   
  
"Dude! I had to! It was the only way to keep her away from Zoe and the rest of you guys! As long as she thinks I love her, she won't attack anybody!" Those silences were really starting to get on my nerves.  
  
"Oh." Riff said after a minute. "I guess that makes sense, then. So you let her think she's got a claim on you with the engagement to keep her jealousy in check?"  
  
"NOTHING can keep her jealousy in check, Riff, and that's something we're gonna have to talk about when I get back."   
  
"Alright. Want me to save ya a beer?" he asked.   
  
"Yeah. Yeah that'd be nice." I told him.  
  
"See ya tomorrow. Later." Saying so, he hung up. That was us...always quick and to the point with our phone calls. I laid the phone back on its cradle, laying back on the lumpy mattress and staring blankly at the ceiling as my mind replayed the day's events again. I think I can safely say that if I've had a worse day recently, I sure as hell don't remember it.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Leaving had been one of the hardest things I'd ever done. I still remember that look on her face...I'll probably remember it for a long time, standing on the curb in the rain, looking like she had so much she still wanted to say. I had tightened my hands on the vinyl of the steering wheel, trying not to look at her...trying to focus on the rain and the rythmic passing of the windshield wipers. I know she hadn't meant to hurt me earlier...I probably should have mentioned it before she got out of the car, but now it was too late.  
  
"You're not going to cry again, Torg." I told myself, setting my jaw. Because something told me that if I caved in now, everything was going to come crashing down...my proposal to Oasis, the promise I had made to myself that I would make this work no matter how difficult it was to keep everyone safe, and all the lying I had done to myself that this was for the best was going to be for nothing. The best. That was a laugh.   
  
My heart turned traitor on my better sense and I found myself turning my head, taking in one last look at her. Zoe looked back with pleading eyes as the rain ran in riverlets down her sleek black hair and her mouth worked as though her words were clinging to the tip of her tongue. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to kill the engine and go to her, crush her close to me and tell her how much she meant to me. How leaving her behind like this was going to kill me.   
  
"Nothing is set in stone yet, you know." a voice spoke up in my head. "You could change it all. That ring meant nothing to anyone but Oasis...you bought it at McFrugal's when you bought Zoe the new outfit tonight, remember? There was nothing special about it...it just tin and glass. Even the clerk looked at you like you were a cheapskate. Take Zoe away from this, change your name, go somewhere far away until things calm down. Riff and the rest'll understand. And Oasis, if she ever gets out of the asylum, will stop looking for you eventually, right? Right??" As tempting as it sounded, I knew it was hopeless. Oasis was completely obsessed and, after her most recent spectacle, I knew there was no place that I could call safe.   
  
It wasn't fair. But by the same token, it wasn't fair to drag her down with me...and as I had told her during our confrontation outside of the asylum, she was safe as long as Oasis didn't think I was seeing her....or thinking of getting anywhere near her ever again. I couldn't even begin to imagine her reaction if she found us living together somewhere and trying to call it a life. There was no other solution, it simply *had* to be this way.   
  
I noticed for the first time that my hands had tightened into a white-knuckled deathhold on the wheel and I found that I was unable to relax them. My vision doubled and then trebled as tears began to threaten me again and I looked quickly down at the dashboard, pretending to adjust the heat.   
  
It was time to go.   
  
As I shifted the car out of park and into drive, I half-wished she would do something to stop me. Isn't that the way it always happened in the movies? The main characters always realized their love for each other at the last possible minute and lived happily ever after? In my case, the hero already knew exactly how he felt about the heroine...and he was pretty sure the herione knew too. But he seriously doubted that there was going to be any last-minute theatrics that would give this tale a happy ending.   
  
I heaved a long sigh, lifting my foot off of the brake. "Goodbye Zoe...take care of yourself." I whispered as the car began to roll. As though some inner leash had finally broken, tears began to not just run, but stream from my eyes. It was like the rest of me hadn't caught up yet...because that's all there was. No sobbing, no sniffling, nothing. Just tears. I don't cry very often...when you live with the sorts of people that I do, not much phases you. Day-to-day life with a trigger-happy mini-lop and a best friend that seemed indirectly bent on destroying you made the rest of your problems look like small beans in comparison.   
  
The rain continued to beat down in sheets and thunder rumbled....the perfect weather for the perfect mood, I thought to myself miserably as my hand reflexively found the radio dial and twisted it on. The song that began to issue out of the speakers, predictably enough, was fitting.  
  
~o~I won't ask you to stay  
I can love you when you're far away  
But please don't stop to say goodbye  
Unless you want to see a grown man cry~o~  
  
They may as well have slapped a title on today and marketed it as a love story gone wrong, I thought bitterly as I listened. The teeny-boppers would love it. We'd get Lenny Dicapitatee to play me and everything. All that was missing now was the iceberg in the middle of the road for me to crash into and sink into nothingness.   
  
~o~When the winter comes and you find yourself alone without your love  
I can send my heart up to the sun to find you from above  
Right now the only sky I see is a crazy shade of gray  
But I know those clouds will disappear someday~o~  
  
Thunder crashed across the sky again and the rain was coming down in sheets. All I wanted to do now was find a motel and hope that things looked better in the morning. Jet lag, proposing to a total psychopath, and saying goodbye to someone who privately means the world to you, believe it or not, can really take a lot of out of you.  
  
~o~Seems like you're always leavin'  
I count the times when I can tell  
My foolish heart goes on believin'  
Show me the "fair" in farewell.....~o~  
  
It was that last line....maybe the special emphasis the singer put on it, or maybe because it just summed the entire ordeal up so perfectly. Whatever had been keeping the rest of me from catching up was no longer standing in the way and a long shuddering sob tore through me. The car swerved a bit and I slapped at the turn signal, pulling over to the shoulder of the road as it seemed that this breakdown was not going to wait for anyone.  
  
I don't know how long I sat there, but I think its safe to say I've never cried quite that much in one sitting before....not since I was little anyway. And then there was that time Riff used my copy of Streetfighter 2 as spare parts for a last-minute Science Fair project. Alright, so maybe I *had* cried this much before, but it was different this time.  
  
By the time I could think straight again, the rain had let up a bit...at least enough that I could clearly see through the windshield again. I got a grip on myself and started the car up again, pulling into the first motel I could find.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
This is about where you came in. Its closing in on four in the morning and I still can't sleep. The three beers I tossed back for dinner aren't doing much except upsetting my stomach and there's nothing to watch on TV except infomercials and re-runs of Larry Winger...I guess they assume people awake at this hour have better things to do with their time than moon over things that could have been.   
  
Every time I close my eyes, I can still see her standing there in the rain. Hard to believe it all happened a few hours ago.  
  
So many things left unsaid.  
  
So many daydreams I'll never fulfill.  
  
I love you, Zoe....I just wish I had said it sooner. 


End file.
